Extra staff are being brought in as Nuneaton’s hospital gets to grips with the fall-out of being branded ‘requires improvement’ by health inspectors who have serious concerns about end-of-life and emergency care.

Following the hammer blow results of an inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which resulted in the George Eliot Hospital being rated as ‘requires improvement’ overall, management at the hospital have been quick to take action.

Their deeply-felt disappointment at the CQC rating, which shows that levels of care have declined following an overall ‘good’ rating during the last inspection in 2014, has led to a steely determination to bring about changes needed.

Kath Kelly, the hospital’s chief executive, said that they accept they need to make changes and have already started working on the areas that caused most concern – which includes bringing in more staff.

Read More

In emergency care it was highlighted that senior leaders were not aware of the risk to patients in the department, there were no dedicated triage nurses in post, not all staff had been trained to triage patients and leaders were ‘not leading effectively’ and were not visible due to demand elsewhere in the hospital.

It is no secret that the hospital has struggled with a horrendous back log in people waiting for care, which at one point saw almost 13,000 patients waiting for Referral to Treatment (RTT).This was noted by the QCQ which said that hospital must meet its RTT in order to make improvements.

Kath Kelly explained that a ‘comprehensive’ action plan is now in place, which will be monitored.

“We had already started work on areas for attention identified by the CQC, including recruiting a Consultant in Palliative Care who will start with us in August. We are also increasing capacity further by welcoming a new senior nurse in our end of life team,” she said.

“The extra space in A&E is also being complemented by the introduction of a new streaming process that will improve the triage process for patients. We have also recruited more nursing staff and will be strengthening the leadership in our Emergency Department team.”

She added that while still coming to terms with the inspection rating, she has been buoyed by messages from the community.

“I was humbled to receive messages of support from patients via social media and email over the weekend that highlighted to me the areas that we consistently get right,” she said.

“ It was also heartening to see the very positive comments made by the CQC regarding our diagnostic services and surgery teams.”

She concluded: “We accept that there are areas we must improve. But the teamwork and dedication showed by our fantastic staff means we can build on the positives at the Eliot and be optimistic for the future.”

The inspection results were not all doom and gloom as the hospital’s maternity and gynaecology, medical care, intensive care, services for children and young people and outpatients were rated as ‘good’.

Special mention was also made to the compassionate care shown by staff by Prof Baker, who said: “Inspectors also observed areas of good practice and found patients were treated with kindness, dignity and respect across the trust. Patient dignity and comfort was a priority and we saw this attitude reflected in the staff working across the trust.”

He concluded: “The trust leadership knows what it needs to do to bring about the necessary improvements.”